Laura Staton - Baby Om: Yoga for Mothers and Babies

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Contents

T O R OSEY AND D YLAN WITH LOVE

Y OU STARTED IT ALL .

Foreword

In the first few days, weeks, and months of an infants life, mother and baby learn to adjust to each other in creating their relationship. It is a kind of yoga: the one has become two, and the two spontaneously create a union that establishes something greater than there was before. Within this primary matrix, the foundation is set for the infants growing individuality to emergeThis is my hand touching your faceand the experience of becoming a separate self is set in motion. From these ongoing interactions, the mother-child relationship grows.

It is at this pivotal time in development that a mother must be present and receptive to the needs of her baby. It is, however, often a time when she may feel exhausted and stressed. This is reflected at every level of experience. Physically, her body can lack agility and seem as though it is not her own. How, then, can a mother feel receptive to the needs of her baby when she may not be in harmony with herself? How can she nurture another when she feels so overwhelmed?

With their deep understanding of the conditions essential for healthy union, Sarah Perron and Laura Staton have created a sequence of carefully designed yoga poses that heighten a womans awareness of her body and allow her to gently open and come into the present. With these subtle yet profound changes of her body, Mom begins to experience a developing confidence. As she nurtures herself, she becomes more in touch with her own needs, enabling her to be more sensitive to the needs of her infant. Because the baby is an eager participant in every Baby Om class, the possibilities of connection between the two are heightened in unique ways.

Although mothers gain greater resilience and vitality as they progress, the class is not just for them. And, though the babies appear to be having a wonderful time, the class is not just for them, either. Instead, each class is geared toward enhancing the developing relationship. Whether the baby is hoisted on Moms hip as a part of her Warrior pose, placed belly down on the mat as a reflection of her Cobra pose, or guided through a series of baby poses, the potential for each partner to gracefully merge with, then separate from the other is enhanced. Through a variety of these yogic activities, the mother-baby relationship grows in flexibility and receptivitythe roots of good health.

Besides all that, its fun!

R UELLA F RANK , P H .D.

P SYCHOLOGIST, INFANT EDUCATOR ,

AND YOGA PRACTITIONER

INTRODUCTION:

The Baby Om Story

When people ask us why we created a business of mother and baby yoga classes two months into parenthood, we have to be honest: we did it because we needed them. As new mothers we hardly felt like budding entrepreneurs. We were elated and exhausted, and most of all felt an overwhelming urge to spend time with our children. But as women, as dancers, and as yoga teachers, we yearned to get back into shape. Learning how to practice yoga along with our babies turned out to be the only way to indulge both needs: to deepen our bonds with our children while healing our postpartum selves physically and mentally. And by creating classes for others around what we learnedclasses that turned into Baby Om we managed to help a network of mothers and friends do the same. We wrote this book hoping it will do the same for you.

Why does yoga, more than any other form of exercise, address the needs of new mothers so well? Well explore this question in more detail later on, but theres a simple answer. Yoga is all about flexibilityin addressing your changing life as well as your stiff limbs! It stretches and strengthens you, gently assisting a gradual return to physical strength just as it can deliver a shattering workout. It encourages improvisation and play. It provides babies with a soothing environment in which to begin experiencing their bodies interactions with the world. So it perfectly answers the new mothers need for a calming yet rigorous way to align and strengthen her body while still having fun with her baby. Throughout our pregnancies we suspected some of this. After all, we were yoga teachers and felt that yoga would be an integral part of our early parenthood. We just had no idea how much it would help, or that a new business and a new life for both of us would result.

Our friendship is based on our shared passions. We followed parallel career paths that started in modern dance and embraced teaching yoga as a (slightly) less impoverishing profession. When we each found out we were pregnant, we were elated, but also uncertain about the future. How would we combine the physical demands of our professional lives with the needs of our children so that no one felt shortchanged? Sarah, who had toured with Mikhail Baryshnikov, was pregnant with Rosey and was still dancing and directing rehearsals for the company she had performed with for over a decade. Laura, who had been choreographing and dancing since leaving Juilliard, was pregnant with Dylan and had a full calendar of dance commitments. Still worse, we were both scheduled to perform in a show around two months after our babies were due. What were we thinking?

While we danced and taught through our ninth month, our birth experiences turned out to be very different. Laura underwent a difficult labor that ended with a cesarean section, while Sarah had an unmedicated vaginal delivery. Both of us emerged as delighted and depleted as every new mother. But after a two-month blur of diaper changes, family visits, midnight feedings, and baby vomit, the dreaded show arrived. While our husbands in the audience nervously held fussing babies, we staggered and finessed our way through the whole thing. Backstage between dances and impromptu feedings, we tried to calm our anxiety and catch our breath, but the reality was obvious: life had changed, and so had we. It was time to get back in shape.

The next week we began searching the city for yoga classes we could take with our babies in tow. What we found wasnt promising. Our first instinct was to return to our usual yoga classes, an everyday routine before we had babies. But since those classes are far from baby-friendly, we were faced with either leaving our newborns with a friend or family member (a favor quickly used up) or finding a baby-sitter (costly). There were also postpartum classes that included babies but these tended either to concentrate mainly on the infant (baby massage, for example) or offered meditative yoga focusing on breathing and soothing. While we wanted to include our babies, we still craved a complete workoutone tailored to our postpartum bodies, aimed at strengthening, aligning, and grounding. The combination simply wasnt to be found.

One day, sitting around Lauras apartment eating jellybeans, it dawned on us that since we couldnt find the class we wanted, we should create one. We could construct exactly the environment that we knew we, as new moms, wanted and that others might want, too: a class that would address mothers and babies equally, a class applicable to anyone, from swami to couch potato. We decided to give it a go. We rented studio space, took our kids and yoga mats along, and began to experiment several times a week with what felt right for our bodies, our psyches, and our infants.